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There’s actually another track that he did on this album that I had to take off for political reasons, but it was a really cool thing. He came to the house and laid it down and killed it. He didn’t come with no entourage or nothing. It was real special to me. I appreciate that space when I can sit with the artist and really see how their genius works, and Kendrick is that guy."

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The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.

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The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.

He was confident of his literal writing skills, but at first people doubted him, then they changed their opinions on Kendrick writing skills when he dropped Good Kid M.A.A.D City on the shelves of records stores.

Now critics study his words and find deep meaning, cohesive story line and poetic figure of speech, like they would for a writer like Ernest Hemingway.

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This is particularly shot at people getting loans on unecessary luxury things (like a Mercedes Benz) they barely can afford while they should focus on priorities, like their children’s future or spending on something that his value doesn’t depreciate by half in the first year.

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Note that Assassins uses his Patois accent, to perform a double entendre. He pronounces black & block almost identically and uses 2 definitions of the word race . It is believed that the first humans originated in Africa, as Kendrick alluded to in verse 1. In other words, every race (ethnicity) started from Africans (black). Those lines also ties with track & field; runners begin on a starting “block.”

The line is certainly “every race start from the black, just remember that.” Assassin, of course, has a Jamaican accent; he’s Caribbean, and one may hear it the way one wants to, but Assassin is chatting that Africa is the origin of civilization which has been scientifically discussed time and time again. It would not make sense, in this context, for Assassin to say “every race start from the block.” Every race has not started from an auction block, and the Black race did not begin there either. That interpretation is reaching in an attempt to deny the obvious, which, ironically, is part of what the song and album are addressing — the reciprocity of Africans in America who started from the top of civilization (in Africa) as the original people of the planet and who have fallen to the bottom (in America). Here is the double speak or double entendre because Kendrick says, “came from the bottom of mankind” when really the bottom is the top or the origin, interpreted as the bottom by a system of white supremacy, a system whose tenets are upheld even by those it oppresses who suffer from a type of Stockholm syndrome or Post Traumatic Slave Disorder. A Jamaican artist, I’m sure, was not chosen by accident to be featured on this song. During slavery, Jamaicans were some of the most rebellious slaves, and had many maroon societies who fought against the vileness of that evil institution. Today, Jamaican culture, which, of course, includes reggae and dancehall, is full of repatriation and liberation chants that fight against the oppression of Black people — worldwide. There really is no double entendre in that particular line. It’s “Black” not “Block” if one understands patois.

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These lines play with images of Black American life in the past and present. Black people have gone from being whipped (figuratively) to owning whips (expensive and flashy cars), from being locked in chains, to wearing gold and diamond chains. Whips and chains were tools of oppression and control during slavery—now they are something else, but perhaps still tools of a certain kind of oppression.

Kendrick is tapping into that deep rooted southern dialect with his choice of words here. Diving deeper into the whole idea of blackness and our black culture. Our culture had a certain language that was used in negro spirituals and during the times when black people were held in chains.

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The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.

What is this?

The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.

What is this?

The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.

What is this?

The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.